#hmtb update

[angeart]

---- HMTB CHAPTER 60----

HMTB chapter 60: The Blood That Stains (Our Surroundings, Our Hands, Your Veins)

is now posted on AO3!!

---

This time, he’ll be a guard dog. He’ll learn how to bite when the conman smile isn’t working. He’ll learn how to keep Grian behind him, safe, safe, safe, putting himself at the forefront of the danger instead.

Grian’s spent all that effort to keep Scar alive when the sun beamed relentlessly down, warming the sand beneath their feet. He hung around him, concerned and anxious, watching over him. He told him Scar’s life is too valuable to lose.

Now it was Scar’s turn to tug those playing cards out of Grian’s stubborn grasp and take hold of them. It was his turn to play this game. To be watchful and protective. To put himself in harm’s way when he has lives still left to lose.

[angeart]

---- HMTB CHAPTER 59----

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

HMTB chapter 59: House Of Matches (Burning Down) II

is now posted on AO3!!

---

Impulse doesn’t want to wake up to a tragedy he was meant to prevent. He doesn’t want to fail here. He can’t.

He refuses to pick sinking contently into ignorance, just because it’s easier in this very moment. Because while pushing through to get answers might seem like the hard option here, the alternative is something none of them would be able to bear, and… Impulse can’t allow that. He can't let things slip through his fingers and fall. Can't, can't, can't.

And so, bracing himself, he squares his shoulders, brittle determination flickering in his gaze. There is no other choice to make here. It's simple: he won’t take those chances. He won't let that tragedy unfold itself without him trying. He won’t turn his back, close his eyes.

He won’t let everyone shatter in the aftermath of something preventable. Not on his watch.

Ignoring the vertigo that gleefully reminds him that he is not in control, that he holds no guarantees over their fates, he stubbornly marches on through marshes and trenches and minefields lined with barbed wires. Feet sinking into sand he never expected to be on the battlefield in the first place.

He has to keep going.

There’s nothing else to do but this. There never was.

[angeart]

---- HMTB CHAPTER 58----

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

HMTB chapter 58: The Edges Of Breaking (Don’t Let Me Fall Too Far)

is now posted on AO3!!

---

The person breathes out, a crease marring his brows. A flicker of despair and rising concern and relief, all at once, etched into familiar features. “Grian.”

Grian feels his fingers curl, dig deeper into the fabric, tug. “Scar.”

A shaky exhale leaves Scar’s lips, and he tugs Grian closer, right against him. Right where Grian can feel his wild heartbeat.

There’s not a sliver of resistance; Grian burrows easily into the embrace. (Anything but this hallway.) (… Hallway?) Scar’s cheek is pressed to Grian’s hair; he’s shushing him gently, waiting for Grian’s trembling to abate. (When did he start to shake?) Grian’s wings hang loose and limp, dipped down in surrender or defeat, no strength for fighting left. (No strength for screaming, for trying to escape, for hurting—)

“Do you want to leave?” Scar says softly, and Grian has an odd feeling that Scar’s already asked it before.

[angeart]

---- HMTB CHAPTER 57----

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

HMTB chapter 57: To Protect, To Cherish, To Destroy

is now posted on AO3!!

---

Dizzyingly, he thinks of a bouquet made of purple and red, apologies and a promise of a future they could still share against all odds. He thinks of dark purple feathers and scarlet eyes and loyalty scattered across desert sand like loose flower petals. 

He holds Scar’s gaze (green green green) (green like flower stems, giving them life; green like leaves catching sunlight), his heart fluttering and weak and frightened in his chest. His arms are wrapped around his middle—not bloodied, definitely not bloodied—and his wings still partially shield him, and through it all, he still has no idea how to feel safe. No idea how to stop hurting.

He’s going to rip everything apart. He’s going to set down an explosive and light it up right beneath his feet.

He thinks of purple flowers, and of the red TNT block in his inventory.

It’s only Scar’s voice that tethers him, familiar, drawing a path beneath Grian’s feet like pulling a lead of a llama with clear destination in mind: home. Reminding him that there’s still someone out there with him. That this isn’t over. That the world doesn’t yet have to be drenched in blood and loneliness and choices that can’t be taken back.

[angeart]

---- HMTB CHAPTER 55----

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

HMTB chapter 55: A Boatem We

is now posted on AO3!!

---

It’s up to Grian to reel Scar in. It’s up to Grian to make sure everyone remains unharmed. It’s up to Grian to disentangle this and defuse the explosives they’re all stubbornly setting up—himself included.

But nobody’s listening to him, because Impulse isn’t stopping, and Scar is ready and willing to deliberately step over that tripwire, uncaring for the collateral, and Mumbo doesn’t understand that what he’s holding fire to is just another TNT, and Grian is tired, he’s so very tired. His hands aren’t made for defusing. He’s made of flint and steel, wax knots and gunpowder core. Not this.

[angeart]

---- HMTB CHAPTER 51----

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

HMTB chapter 51: All The Hollow Things (My Ribcage And Your Promises)

is now posted on AO3!! (one year after chapter 1 was posted! woo!)

[angeart]

---- HMTB UPDATE ----

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

HMTB chapter 50: Trouble Boils Beneath (Calm Before the Storm)

is now posted on AO3!!

[angeart]

---- HMTB CHAPTER 53----

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

HMTB chapter 53: Shifting Sand

is now posted on AO3!! ---

His emotions wrangle in him—a need to be close, to give in, to accept everything Scar’s giving him, pushed violently against the sharp memories of sand and desert, something happy tiding over into blood and pain and misery.

He flexes his fingers, pulls them into a fist and then stretches them out, trying to unknot the tension and release the slight tremble that courses through them. His throat feels dry, all of a sudden.

“It’s okay,” Scar says in the softest tone that never fails to tug at Grian’s heart.